Christine de Pizan The Treasure of the City of Ladies

(1364-1430)

A Venetian-born woman of the medieval era who strongly challenged misogyny and stereotypes prevalent in the male-dominated medieval culture. As a poet, she was well known and highly regarded in her own day.

• Ahead of her time because she was broke – she needed to make money so she became a kind of Margaret Fuller ahead of her time.
• Ladies in waiting is where ladies got their training. There were tutors for girls, but the education was not as hard or thorough as for boys. Reading, writing, foreign language, and womanly arts. Most educated woman in England was Thomas More’s daughter Margaret.
• Lower class women and men did not get much education at all, but lower class women had a change at a rudimentary education (momma kept the books)
• Public / private rhetoric
• Pizan’s focus is on running the household and the servants – to inspire loyalty. The home was the “woman’s place” – not pejorative then, often running a household with 80-100 people.
• Salon tradition brought in politeness. Held in women’s homes, often in bedrooms. Wit and clever speech valued. Removed male, aggressive argument. There is a long-term anti-rhetoric in France and women are a big part of it
• 
  language is key to women’s advancement
  • women’s success depends on their ability to manage and mediate by speaking and writing effectively
  • Still upheld the status quo – just gave women a way of managing being in the quo better

The Book of the City of Ladies (c.1405)

• Not written in Latin – she wrote in French – writing like she was talking. More interest in her in last 20 years – ½ renaissance and ½ medieval – language and domestic life are very medieval but her topic, the courtier, is very renaissance.